Earlier today, Film School Rejects announced the full synopsis for Source Code, Ducan Jones’s follow up to Moon. Moon was the 2009 British sci-fi sensation starring Sam Rockwell as a man who experiences a personal crisis as he nears the end of a three-year solitary stint mining helium-3 on the far side of the Earth’s moon.
The film was a critical success, winning the 2009 award for Best British Independent Film and was also nominated for two BAFTAs at the 2010 awards and won the award for “Outstanding Debut by a British writer, director or producer”.
Suffice it to say Duncan Jones who produced the film on a shoestring budget is a director to look out for. It’s safe to say that Source Code is a movie we will be carefully following, considering Moon appeared on Sound On Sight’s Top 10 list for 2009.
Here is the synopsis for Source Code from the American Film Market:
“Captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) wakes with a jolt to find himself on a commuter train heading into Chicago. Although the other passengers all seem to know him, he has absolutely no idea where – or even who – he is.
The last thing Colter remembers is flying a helicopter mission in Iraq, but here he is in someone else’s life going through someone else’s morning commute. Before he can do anything an express train zooms by on the opposite track and a bomb explodes, seemingly killing Colter and all the other passengers.
Colter comes to in an isolation chamber, strapped to a seat, and wearing his military flight suit. He still has no idea what’s happening, except that he’s being spoken to by mission controller Carol Goodwin (Vera Farmiga), who calmly recites a series of memory questions to which Colter is shocked to realize he knows the answers.
He learns he’s part of an operation called “Beleaguered Castle,” but before he can progress any further, Goodwin starts up the machinery and suddenly Colter is back on the train, at exactly the same time he first appeared there, once again speeding through Chicago with the same group of commuters.
Colter figures he’s in some kind of simulation exercise, with his task being to find the bomber on board the train before it goes off again. Living the explosion over and over, Colter must uncover the identity of the bomber, while also figuring out what the alternative universe of “Beleaguered Castle” is. Adding to the puzzle, Colter uses the second chance opportunities to make peace with his father, and to find romance with a fellow passenger on the train.